And the game used for VHBL is…

Ok, so, since the PSN maintenance is being postponed, there is no reason for me to not give the name of the game used by Teck4 for his exploit:

The Game is Motorstorm Arctic Edge, also known as Motorstorm Raging Ice in Japan. It is available for 19.99 euro on most European Playstation Stores, 15.99 Pounds in the UK, and for 3800 yen on the Japanese store. Note for North American readers: that game, despite being available on the US Store, is marked as not compatible with the Vita in the US. People who have bought it in the US and tried to transfer it to their vita have failed as far as I know, which is why a few days ago I recommended people in the US to get a European PSN account.

Now what’s next?

Well it’s simple and stressful at the same time: I’m giving you guys a couple days to buy a copy of that game if you think VHBL is worth it (and assuming you trust that I’m not lying), and then I’ll release the VHBL files. There are pros and cons to this “2 steps” release. The cons are that you have to trust me, and there’s a possibility Sony actually patches/patched something without me knowing it, the pros are that I don’t think Sony will remove the game from their store until they actually have something to patch, so I think this gives you guys a couple days to buy the game. Or, you can wait until I release the files and other people confirm it works, at which point you run the risk that Sony patches the exploit and/or removes the game from the store before you can even buy it.

Now, let me be clear once again: buy the game if you want to play it, I have no way to guarantee VHBL will work for you, I can just tell that a few days ago this was confirmed to work by a few testers. Also keep in mind that VHBL gives you no iso, no special access to the Vita hardware, just a limited PSP homebrew experience on your vita. If like me you think it’s fun, then you might be interested. Or, if you think that 20 euros is a fair price for one of the best PSP games, then, well, just consider VHBL as a “bonus”.

VHBL has been confirmed to work on firmware 1.61. If your console asks you to update to firmware 1.62 or something, I cannot guarantee it will still work. It is also recommended, after you bought the game, to be paranoid and disconnect your console from the network, and to install openCMA. Again, there are lots of unknown things going on with the Vita, it is impossible for me to tell if this will work for everyone.

As far as I know, there are 5 versions of this game out there. I ported VHBL to 4 of them, and I am sure the fifth one is vulnerable too, but I couldn’t find any place selling or “distributing” it, so I couldn’t port the exploit to it. That being said, it should be “doable” if somebody can get a copy, to port the exploit to that version as well.

Finally, for those who want proof, here’s a video:

I want to thank the people who made this release go as smoothly as possible, especially Teck4 and Mamosuke, HBL devs (in particular m0skit0 and JJS, thanks for lurking on the scene for so long, you guys are the real deal!) the mods at /talk who have helped a lot over the past week, the handful of devs/testers who know how to keep a secret (you know who you are), but also the thousands of /talk users who, for some of them, have been knowing the game’s name for several days now, and haven’t leaked anything. You guys are truly an awesome community, you can of course now go ahead and let your friends know, or brag about how you’ve known about the game for a while and hold the secret. It was so far an awesome experiment, let’s hope the result will be worth it!

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wololo

We are constantly looking for guest bloggers at wololo.net. If you like to write, and have a strong interest in the console hacking scene, contact me either with a comment here, or in a PM on /talk!

let me get this straight, your giving us the name of the game, but no files AND giving sony 2 days to pull the game or patch it? although I appreciate your work, outlaying 16 pounds to trust a person on the net who wont give a second thought if its patched,pulled,or doesnt work is not something I or thousands of others will do. Sorry man, but that is a terrible decision on your part

No release = nothing to patch. At worst, they will pull the game from the store, and lose money. If they do, people like Yosh, who have other such psp exploits can release their own exploit in a different game.

I think it’s better than giving the files with the game, which would give Sony definite proof of the hack, how to use it, and how to patch it. Since you don’t trust me, I assume they don’t either, so everything’s good so far. As said by Mastarifla, you don’t have to trust me, or to buy the game, or anything. I’m not getting any money when that game gets sold. It’s your choice.

Nevertheless, I’m interested to know how you would have handled this release. It’s possible you are not aware of many of the securities on the Vita…

sony dont need proof… they dont need a reason to pull the game, they just do it. i would have certainly released the files at the same time so at least people could have gotten VHBL working on their systems. I bought 2 vita’s for this purpose.

It seems to me, although I might be TOTALLY wrong, that sony are actively watching this site, and not many people will get to enjoy homebrew this time around.

Fair enough. I still think releasing the files at the same time as the name of the game was a guarantee that the game would be pulled off of the store, while here everybody including Sony can doubt this is real. I might be wrong, but I’m thinking that by proceeding this way, I will actually allow more people to get the game than if I had done the opposite. We will, of course, never know.

Who’s testing this? Who made HBL? Who are you? Are you the creator of this website and/or this modding tool? Who decided Motorstorm was going to be the exploit? Who are the people responsible for HBL creation? Can we have some answers?

This was probably the best move, let the impatient ones download the game and have them be the test guinea pigs. The good news is they will have a copy of the unpatched game, the bad is that they run the risk of it getting patched or updated. However, they can circumvent this by downloading the game and turning off the connection to the web.

Good job wololo. Just waiting for the file now. I wanna play my favorite snes game & homebrew on my vita, just like i do with my wii and my psp. Personnaly don’t care about piracy (copying game), also, this is a good reason for me to re-start psp programming, since the vita side is not hackable for now.

Hope sony will let us play some time with this [safe]homebrew enabler..

Good job guys. I’m pretty sure, sooner or later, the Vita will be hacked just like the ‘unhackable” psp go. But right now, i’m so looking forward to be playing snes and genesis games. Ps1 emulation is also something i’m looking forward to and hopefully a PS2 emulator?(Though I dont know if the Vita is able to properly emulate it). Now downloading Motorstorm from Singapore and will be waiting for the release of the files. Thanks again guys!

No PS1 or 2 emulation via this exploit anyways. While there were some (barely) working PS1 emulators for the PSP, all work on them was completely dropped once Sony released their official PS1 emulator and everyone just piggy-backed off of that.

HBL has no access to POPS, and the Vita won’t be using it at all (that’s why there is currently no PS1 support on the vita, instead of running an emulator through an emulator, they are busy making a real PS1 emulator for the PSV)

我来自中国，请称呼我Mehian，很抱歉可能让你用翻译了！不知道你的中文是否很好…….请问PSVITA 在索尼官方商店下载的是 MotorStorm Arctic Edge PSP GAME 还是PS Vita GAME，VITA的是59港币，而PSP的是194港币，应该下载哪一个？我的系统是1.61的，你在稍后能放出图文教程吗？谢谢！ ————————————————————————I come from China, please call me Mehian, I’m sorry may allow you to use translation! Do not know your Chinese is very good …. is PSVITA in Sony ‘s official store to download the MotorStorm Arctic Edge PSP is GAME or PS Vita GAME, VITA is HK $59, PSP is 194 Hong Kong dollars, should which to download one? My system is 1.61, you can later released graphic tutorials? Thank you.

hi wololo, nice to hear that we’re almost done here 😀 on the video, after VHBL got started and you switch between the elements, i hear some sound which is very similar to the sound used in age of empires 2 (for example, in game map-buttons). what is it? 😀

Downloading Motorstorm Artic Edge as we speak! Game was fun on PSP, so I have no trouble buying it even if the exploit would be fixed by Sony in the end.

The exploit will only be an extra present on top if it remains working. So thanks Wololo

And those that are nagging about the way of release, or that the game isn’t in USA store, or that they blame Wololo for them not being at home at this time, or were asleep or want to play PSP ISO’s or whatever…

Please, just go buy a prehacked PSP that can do the same + more than this exploit, stop being negative or aggressive even to a nice homebrew developing guy like Wololo please. All that nonsense make guys like him quit making stuff.

Wololo, continue the good work, I’d love to play some Sonic and Mario on my PSVita somewhere soon!

Sony can take it off the store, but the team who made the game has to make a fix for it, or not? Can Sony force them to let everything else go and just get to work to fix this exploit? (i wouldn doubt actually that they can)

My guess is nothing will happen. There is no reason for them why they should do anything. They are making a fortune on this game right now without the risk that this exploit will lead into pirating psp or vita games.

Only IF the people who are in charge at sony are completly technical morons who will panic right away, something will happen. Lets hope the guys in charge know their stuff.

@ Wololo Hi I just saw that there are 2 versions of Motorstorm Arctic Edge on the USA PSN Store. One of them is just the game by itself which you say does not transfer from PS3 to the Vita. Now there is another version in the bundled section of psp games it is the Motorstorm Arctic Edge & Twisted metal: Head On Pack.

Now I have a few questions

1. Do you have any idea if that bundled version transfers form PS3 to Vita ?

2. DO you know if the exploit works with that version ?

3. I have never download a bundled version of a psp game so have no idea if it just downloads each game separately or it comes together with its own unique installer ?

Its not that it doesn’t work it can’t be confirmed if it does or does not work since we couldn’t find a way to transfer it to the vita. It may work if we can find a way to transfer it im trying a few things I know about and I know I can successfully get it on to a pc not sure about to the vita yet.

OK I successfully transfered another game that wouldn’t transfer directly from the vita to my cfw ps3 used a ftp client got it to my pc and transfered it to the vita :). Ive downloaded arctic edge US and I will try do the same with this game. IF it does work will the current vhbl files work or will I need to send the game to you wololo for testing?

Cool game -it’s really just a bonus to be able to use HBL Btw this instalation process looks interesting- I guess U pack the files somehow(in some acceptable form for the CMA) and then repack them on the Vita?

Cool game -it’s really just a bonus to be able to use HBL Btw this instalation process looks interesting- I guess U pack the files somehow(in some acceptable form for the CMA) and then depack them on the Vita?

Thank you..But it’s such a pity that it can’t run the psp isos…Do you think it will be useful in the future if you finally make a tool that can run the isos? Or put it this way, if we can play the psp isos on some other programs in the future, do we need this exploit(or this game)?

I do not personally have plans to work on iso loading tools. People who have tried to load isos thourgh HBL so far have always failed, I don’t think this will change now. Basically, as I said before, don’t buy this game if what you’re expecting are isos. I’m not saying it will never happen because I can’t predict the future, but I’m not seeing any sign of this hack leading to isos for now.

It is still up, but everytime I try to download it it gives me an error saying something to the effect that I cannot connect to the server. Same with the JP account I made. AND they won’t let me add funds. But this all still works on everything else but the Vita. (PS3, MediaGo) etc.

Actually, it doesn’t appear to be working on those either. I don’t even care if I just get it paid for and have a ticket showing that I already did. because even if they patch the game, I can just download it from someone who uploads it, and I’ll have the validation and it will let me use it.

People on other threads said they have gotten Motorstorm to run via the method of downloading on PS3 and copying it to their vita. The only caveat, you have to be above 4.00 PS3 firmware. Any psp games downloaded before the 4.00 Ps3 update (November 2011) will need to be re-downloaded as that update changed the way the content is stored. This would expain why your vitas content manager is not seeing them. If you have Motorstorm purchased on your PS3, but you’re like me and have it modded so you’re staying at 3.55CFW, then you’re out of luck. So Wololo, did your testers that looked to see if they could transfer it from the PS3 to the Vita have an up to date PS3? And if they did, did they already have the game? Or was it recently purchased?

Can anyone confirm this? I’d be willing to plop down the USD for it versus having to juggle a third PSN account on my vita (already have a US and JPN one, but at $50~ the JPN one is overly expensive and that’s not even counting the overhead from having to buy foreign PSN cards)

This is very interesting, I am going to try this out on some games that I had already downloaded long long ago and see if redownloading them on the 4.11 firmware allows them to be transferred. I’ll report back if it works or not.

And for some of you, I don’t want to sound like a wiseacre but I’m following this blog for some time now so I allow myself to tell you a little secret: Modesty is a virtue – maybe this will help you some day.

Please sir, take 2 minutes from your life and actually READ THE POST YOU’RE COMMENTING ON or try reading the comments as several other people have already parrotted what the blog post with answers to that question.

@Wololo, is this a PSN PSP game as in not a Vita version? If its the regular PSP version then I can confirm that it was once on the U.S PSN because I bought it when it first came out. I have it for my Go. Not sure why it was removed though.

At least the source of HBL will be released. As far as the source of the exploit is concerned, I guess it can be shared too, although it’s not really interesting (always the same old tricks). People interested can look at the patapon exploit in the VHBL svn, it’s the same kind of stuff.

I have the “newest” firmware(post 1.61) and just downloaded that game. Would you like to see if they patched it already? I grabbed this unofficial update from a “dev card?” via a good friend. Supposedly this update will be sent out after the PSN update. It shows up as 1.70 but he said that is not it’s official release number. I will kill myself if I purposely patched this exploit… I’m here if you need me!

Hey, excellent work wololo, i’m curious on your thoughts of gaining control of the extra input’s the vita has to offer.

from my understanding, or at least what i remember reading, sony is planning to make some psp game’s benefit from the second analog stick, do you think it’s possible to gain access to these, or that sony is basically forcing re-mapping of the psp controls for a whitelist of games?

I doubt a whitelist would work well but it would not take that much time to release a patch. Take the controls for the left joystiq and copy/paste it over whichever right stick controls the game used, most where the buttons xo▥△.

hi wololo I have a question, I heard people downloading this game on the ps3 and then failing to transfer it to the vita. mi question is, if the game can be downloaded on a ps3, can it be played on the ps3? if so, cant you port hbl to the ps3? I know the ps3 has a psp emu but I dont know how limited it is

Yes, that’s what I mean. I am afraid Sony can patch things without you knowing about it, if you are connected. Several times, I ran into a situation where CMA would tell my Vita to update, and I couldn’t do anything but update the vita if I wanted to move forward

GUYS PLEASE READ THIS, There’s a free game that should be available in every psn store, its a psp title called “ape quest” and there is a free demo version anyone can download, can anyone confirm that they can download the game with their vitas?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!APE QUEST STARTER PACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the vhbl will more than likely work with this FREE game, i can confirm its on the uk/jp/hk store, so I would suggest getting that, so even if sony patches it or smth, nobody gets hurt ^^

I need to confirm it first. As a reminder, HBL is entirely open source, *ANYBODY* with a PSP game exploit can do what I am currently doing with Motorstorm, I am not a magician, neither do I have special skills, just more patience than most people.

great job wololo. and no,sony won’t remove the game,the exploit doesn’t harm them for the moment,and it will increase their profit skyhigh. and also this HBL isn’t a small,it will be the small crack in the window that gets the theaf in the house.

I know this isn’t entirely relevant but when you compare the PSN download price of Arctic Edge (£15) to the UMD of it (£8) it’s crazy how much Sony are overcharging us. That £15 download cost isn’t even including the cost of the memory card to put it on!

I can’t seem to download it at all on the vita or ps3, I believe my copy was a freebie in an australian promotion, ($100 for pspgo +10 games lol) should be the same version. Just get not downloadable on a PSVITA/ps3 system.

Wololo…there’s another possible Exploit…(i hope so) There’s someone who has found another working exploit…you talk about him some days ago and i know the name of the Game he used. Maybe you can take a look on it too if the info is right…

(Nabnab talked about it….just thinking it might be useful for all of us…)

yes, I just read about this. If this is indeed true it shouldn’t take too much effort to port HBL to that game. It seems however the game is not available in JP for the Vita, so that might complicate things a little bit for me. Porting HBL is, by the way, extremely easy (these days, it’s mostly about running a few scripts), so if people want to give it a try:http://wololo.net/wagic/2010/09/14/port-hbl-to-your-game-exploit/

By the way, releasing the name of a game with a hack, without even providing a simple proof of concept, letting other people do the work for them, is IMO not helping the scene at all. The person who revealed this information should have ported HBL first but probably considered it was a waste of their time. Instead, this person is wasting the time of other sceners who will try to confirm/infirm, etc…. Just my 2 cents.

I tried looking at your past posts and I seem to be quite bogged down on actually attempting to port HBL to this new release, I would like to try and see if we can get it working with this game but some of the information on those posts is out of date, I don’t have the files or there may be better ways to do each step now.

I actually updated the tutorials when I worked on the Motorstorm exploit, so I believe they are quite up to date. I can of course answer questions you have, here, or on the forums, or by email (wagic.the.homebrew at gmail.com). Porting HBL is relatively easy, but there’s still some effort/problems on the way.

And what i see, Ape Quest is the only Demo who ist out for the Vita. And only available in the uk and eu Store from what i see. I connected to the US Store and theres nothing. In Eu-Store its still there.

Unfortunaly im a PSP Fan and just start reading about coding and dev stuff. I’ve read your Article how to port the HBL but first i have to look for the Exploit.

Is there any new news from Yosh ?

And could you test ist if its real.

And thanks for your great work and help to install the VHBL. It must be a ot of Stress…

I’ll double check. Although I don’t like Nabnab’s guerilla strategies, and I believe he’s been wrong a lot in the past, the stuff he says always has part of truth (that he unfortunately misinterprets a lot). At the very least, I know that Ape Escape is vulnerable, so it could make sense that Ape Quest has similar flaws.

Umm… *** (I don’t mean this as a sign to freak people out but).. I went to play motorstorm for fun and the game locked on loading screen, going back to the OS I got a notification that there is an update to the game and ask if I wished to download it. =S

the game is installed already, and backups made^^ it is “only” removed from the store and my download list so that i can not download it again from psn. but i can copy it with openCMA in both directions.

I started downloading the game this morning in Australia, (there goes 30 bucks :/) and left for work so ill let you know how things turn out when i get home in 5 hours. Hope fully they didnt apply the patch before i downloaded it.

I made a slight mistake in my last post. I don’t get that message when I hit the PS button. I get it when I hit the PS button then hit the game’s live area icon to resume the game. Clicking cancel will let me return to the game and I can still play the game normally just fine. I think the whole loading lock up was a firmware glitch since it affected me trying to launch another PSP game (it hang at an initial load) and then I had to do a force power down on my unit).

So if someone else is brave enough to test, here are some steps I think might produce it. 1. Turn Wifi on 2. View the J-PSN store 3. Exit everything and run Motorstorm 4. Create a new profile and go to start the main event. 5. Durring the load screen or after the race starts hit the PS button to return to the live area 6. Click the game’s image to start the game.

or

1. Go to the game’s live area, press the Orange button in the top left (maybe my vita though I touched it?) 2. See if it says there is an update.

What I find odd is even if I did accidentally hit the update button and that is what this is about (an old PSP button). I find it disturbing I clicked no to download the update and yet it still downloaded. =S

Ok this stuff is getting creepy. 1. Motorstorm is not in my DL/Purchase history on PSN anymore (at least via vita) 2. You can still search for the game on PSN (via vita) but when I click to view the game I get an error message in Japanese (will try to get a screenshot in a sec).

. Copy to my PC (via Content Manager, unhacked ver), deleting and copying back to my vita still works (as of 10 mins ago). Not sure how long that will stick.

. Doing the above still did not get rid of the pop-up asking if I wish to install the update.

. Clicking the PSP Orange/Yellow icon to check for updates says my version is currently up to date.

. There is no notice, in the notice area, on my vita of it downloading any update (for motorstorm or system file) at all. Generally for Vita game updates/patches the download and update show up in the notice area (clicking the giant bubble in the top right).

Im at 45% on data transfer on the US version I downloaded earlier ill attempt to ftp into my cfw ps3 to get the game on pc later tonight. After that I gotta attempt to transfer it to the vita via OpenCMA… hope it works… if not ill look for another way. I don’t see why this wouldn’t be possible wish me luck.

Also does anyone know if there are different software versions of CMA for different regions and if so would it effect the transfer from CMA? Has anyone been successful in transfering it to there PC via CMA in other regions? I would love to hear a bit of feed back on this if anyone knows something?

eh well ill know for sure in a couple hours im doing this also to see if other psp games not available via ps3 psn store transfer or directly in the vita store will work on a vita at all. I have other ideas on getting this game to my vita as well. Ill just play around and if it doesn’t work i don’t think its a loss as it along with the other titles will probably be available at some point in the future… plus I wanted the game anyway I love motorstorm never owned a psp though so I couldn’t play arctic edge. Can’t wait for the RC release in the US next week either.

wololo, i admire your work, im in the US. i had my vita for a week now. apparently when i finally got off work to look at your site, just found out that motorstorm is the game… =( sadly, its too late now to purchase the game. it would have been nice if you released vhbl to download before releasing the name of the game. that way we have time to download game cuz as soon as you announced it, sony pulled it out within a couple of hours =( i hope you find a patch in the future that will enable us to have vhbl without the game. thanks anyway. i guess i will just have to buy a psp… keep up the good work and hopefully you find a way in the future to enable vhbl without the game

Update (EU / SWE) Searching for “motorstorm” now in ps store from vita show a free download called “Rally Car” with the icon of “Motorstorm Arctic Edge”. I took one for the team (have backup + second Vita anyway) and downloaded the “free game”. I took a few seconds, then I got “installation complete”. I am fairly certain my game is now patched, but can’t cofirm until I have access to vhbl / crash exploit.

i have downloaded numourous numbers of eboot files all of them strictly for the 1000-3000 series and used every fourum i could find in the end after three days of no sleep i can start the exploid save and open the tn-v4 recovery screen however the eboots i try never get found i have named them 660.PBP over and over i have moved them from the game to outside the folder copies everywhere in the vita save file and even put one copy in a folder inside the game TITLEd UPDATE so it might on off chance need to see that folder is the update to find the file and it still does not find the file and immediatly sends me a error loading 660.PBP *** will some one who was struggling or has the solution please messege me im at a loss heck here is my email damn …. – mustangman793@gmail.com email me anytime im going nuts over here gnight

Don’t lose hope, keep in mind that this is a really simple hack that doesn’t bring much, I am convinced there will be much better opportunities along the way. I don’t want to belittle my or Teck4’s work, but it is important that people realize this is really a simple hack that doesn’t bring much

But I am also disappointed, as you can imagine, that the game is not available in the US.

[…] has yanked PSP title Motorstorm Arctic Edge from the PlayStation Store following an announcement from homebrew developer wololo that said game was vulnerable to a savegame exploit allowing Vita users to run homebrew code […]

[…] has yanked PSP title Motorstorm Arctic Edge from the PlayStation Store following an announcement from homebrew developer wololo that said game was vulnerable to a savegame exploit, which allows Vita users to run homebrew code […]

[…] allows older games and those from other systems to be loaded onto the portable console has been shared by hacker site Wololo. The original hack required you to load the existing PSP game Motorstorm: […]

[…] allows older games and those from other systems to be loaded onto the portable console has been shared by hacker site Wololo. The original hack required you to load the existing PSP game Motorstorm: […]

[…] at Wololo.net first publicly announced that their homebrew Vita Half Byte Loader (VHBL) worked by exploiting a vulnerability in a downloadable copy of the PSP title Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, releasing a video of Doom being loaded onto the system by way of proof. Sony responded quickly, […]

[…] at Wololo.net first publicly announced that their homebrew Vita Half Byte Loader (VHBL) worked by exploiting a vulnerability in a downloadable copy of the PSP title Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, releasing a video of Doom being loaded onto the system by way of proof. Sony responded quickly, […]

[…] at Wololo.net first publicly announced that their homebrew Vita Half Byte Loader (VHBL) worked by exploiting a vulnerability in a downloadable copy of the PSP title Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, releasing a video of Doom being loaded onto the system by way of proof. Sony responded quickly, […]

[…] country but not in the others (e.g. Motorstorm Arctic Edge was supported in Europe and Japan but not in the US), we know this is not a technical limitation.Suggestion: keep your promises. Update customers […]